Energy Management in Shipboard Microgrid Systems

Abstract

With fossil fuel reserves depleting at a rapid rate, efforts to explore alternative sources of energy have doubled up over the years. Terrestrial microgrids are designed to accommodate renewable sources of energy.  However the use of microgrids in marine environment has posed problems such as abnormal rise in voltage and variation in the frequency of the system. These problems arise due to improper load management. The electrical loads present in the terrestrial microgrids are different from the loads present in the marine microgrid. The behavior of these loads on the microgrid has to be studied for efficient operation of the system. This paper introduces the different types of loads present in the marine microgrid before introducing an algorithm in order to control it. Apart from studying the loads present in the system, this paper aims at integrating renewable energy sources into the system in order to  reduce the dependency of conventional  diesel generators for electrical power. Hence this paper introduces the concept of using Solar PV as the renewable source of generation. Control algorithms such as P & O MPPT Algorithm, PQ Decoupled Strategy and Constant Torque Angle Method are discussed.The simulation of a shipboard microgrid system along with the control strategies mentioned earlier are carried using MATLAB/SIMULINK and the results are verified.